That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death... Philippians 3:10
This was a prayer I prayed for myself and it is a prayer our Lord delights to answer. As a pastor there were any number of times I had been misunderstood, rejected, disappointed, and used. Hurts and wounds along the way made me sometimes wonder, "How many times can you have your heart ripped out and still function?" It occurred to me one day as I was considering some things that had happened that God was answering my prayer.
There is an old gospel song that says, "Jesus knows your hurts; Jesus feels your pain." When we pray to know the fellowship of His suffering are we not asking to enter into and identify with His pain. It is the natural order that the power of the resurrection follows the fellowship of His suffering. He suffered and was crucified and then He was resurrected. In a very real sense we have been crucified with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life. If in Him we died, then with Him we are resurrected. This is established fact; it is a done deal, but Paul in his writing is speaking of something he is aspiring to, looking to attain.
That we may know Him is that desire for an ever increasing revelation of who He is, having an intimacy beyond human relationship. It will take eternity to experience and see the unfolding of who God is. I agree with Jonathan Edwards that heaven will be a continuing revelation of the awesomeness of our God. My vocabulary is not adequate to describe what I know of Him now. Paul surely knew Him as well as any one in scripture yet he was setting as His goal to know Him. We want to experience that knowing that continually changes and conforms us to His image.
Knowing the power of His resurrection was Paul's objective that he might attain to the resurrection in His own body. We have been resurrected, but we shall be resurrected. We have resurrection life dwelling in us in the person of the Holy Spirit. See Romans 8:11 We want the power, but we don't want the suffering. The suffering came before the resurrection. I believe an essential key to walking in the power of the resurrection is the putting to death of the flesh. Isn't interesting that the first place the Spirit led Jesus, after He came upon Him, was the wilderness where He was tempted 40 days of the devil. Scripture then says Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. To know His power there must first be a death that takes place.
So what about the fellowship of His sufferings? Once again Paul, just as we have been, was baptized into Christ's death, so there must be more to the knowing of it than our spiritual position. Some of you have suffered persecution. Some of you have experienced rejection. Probably all of us have known the pain of disappointment. If we are experiencing these things for Jesus sake and His righteousness we are entering into or having communion with His sufferings. Jesus does know our hurts; He does know our pain. Look at just a small portion of the sufferings of Christ.
Rejection: 1) He came unto His own and His own received Him not.
2) After His discourse on bread from heaven where He spoke of them eating His flesh
and drinking His blood, all but the twelve left Him.
3) The rich young ruler ,whom Jesus loved, chose his riches rather than Christ.
4) From eternity past to that moment in time when Jesus took upon Himself our sin and
felt separation from the Father.
Betrayal: 1) Judas turned Jesus in for thirty pieces of silver.
2) Peter, one of the intimate three denied the Lord three times.
3) They all fled for their lives when He was taken captive.
Pain: There was both the physical pain and emotional pain of the beatings, the mocking, and
shame Christ endured on our behalf.
I think often about the Last Supper and how Jesus demonstrated servant leadership. I think about when He came to Judas and knowing fully well that very night Judas would turn Him over to authorities, He washed Judas' feet. He was serving and showing kindness to his betrayer. Later, He would suffer unbelievable abuse on behalf of not only you and me, but the ones who put Him to death. He died for the one who held the whip, the one who hammered the nails. There is key to how Jesus could so freely give of Himself in John 13.
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, rose from supper, and laid aside His garments: and taking a towel, He girded Himself about. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples's feet... John 13:3-5
Jesus knew what He'd been given and He knew where He was from and He knew where He was going. How about you? Do you know you been made to be joint heirs with Christ and that He gave you authority and that your ultimate end is with Him? Do you know you have been born of God and you will go to God? If you know who you are, you can be a servant, even to those who would betray you. You can bless those who curse you and pray for those who despitefully use you.
But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation. I you are reviled for the sake of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit and glory of God rests upon you. 1Peter 4:13-14
After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1 Peter 5:10
I can pray with confidence that if I want to know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, He will answer and not necessarily in that order. The answer might not always be pleasant, but it will have a good work. May Christ give you an ever increasing revelation of Himself.
Amen
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Fear of the Lord is Clean
Dear friends,
I pray that you are well. I have been preaching through the book of Acts and it has been very eye-opening. I have been in chapter 5 for three weeks now and in dealing with the passage on Ananias and Sapphira it became increasingly apparent that in the 21st century church we have lost the fear of the Lord. I want to talk a little about that today. As always I pray this will be a blessing to you.
Then immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her out, buried her by her husband. So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. Acts 5:10,11
Can you imagine, one of those young men goes home and tells his family, "We had an exciting time at church today, two people dropped dead!" I am not sure what that might do to the next weeks attendance.
Was that fear a good thing or a bad thing? Look at the following scriptures with the understanding that there were no chapter or verse breaks in the original. What do we see in verses 12 through 16?
1. Many signs and wonders were done among the people by the apostles.
2. They were all in one accord.
3. Even those who did not join the church had great esteem for them.
4. Multitudes were saved.
5. All the sick and demonically tormented that were brought to them were healed.
I'd like to add a few thoughts on what we see there. Years ago I heard a couple of preachers speak of a coming revival which would come in four stages. The four stages were:
1) Intimacy
2) Purity
3) Unity
4) Power
I believe these stages were evident here and that the fear of the Lord is the catalyst in each of these stages.They were in one accord. In the verse used for the title, the fear of the Lord is clean, the word clean in Hebrew means pure, clean, purified, unalloyed. We cannot have unity without purity of heart, purity of motives. Do we dare assemble in the presence of a holy God with impure motives in our heart. Tradition says a rope was tied around the ankle of the priest so He could be dragged out if he died in the Holy of Holies.
Intimacy and purity are closely related. How can I get close to God if I refuse to walk in purity.
The psalmist asks in Psalms 15, "Lord who may abide in Your holy tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?" Again, he says in Psalms 24,"Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart...."
It seems that David's greatest fear in his psalm of contrition, Psalms 51, was losing the Lord's presence."Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Psalms 51:11. It seems to me that one of the facets of the fear of the Lord is fear of losing intimacy with Him. I am thankful, that I can come boldly before His throne and receive mercy and find grace in my time of need and if I confess my sin He is faithful and just to forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. We have a loving and forgiving Father who is approachable, full of mercy and grace, but He is holy. Where sin abounds grace does much more abound, so what shall we say then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How can we who are dead to sin live any longer therein? Can we continue in sin and it not affect our relationship with the Father? I think not. We reject grace if we continue to sin. Consider this for example, unforgiveness is rejecting God's grace. Jesus clearly states if we do not forgive, we'll not be forgiven. To harbor unforgiveness is to reject grace and the fear of the Lord.
Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit...? ......you have not lied to men but to God. Acts 5:3a;4b
It seems that Ananias had allowed the enemy place in his heart. The deception he devised could be categorized as the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life. He wanted the money and the praise of men as well. In his impure motives he lied to the Holy Spirit. We can quench the Spirit and we can grieve the Spirit. It grieves the Spirit to give anything else His place and to quench the Spirit is like crimping a water hose. the Spirit gives life, but any place we give to the enemy in our heart, he will work death in. I hate to say this but there are those who have quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit for so long that they are like Sampson when his hair was cut; he did not know the Lord had departed from him. There are many who are not walking in the fullness that God has for them. There are many in the church in whom the enemy is working death.
Friends, I say this in fear and trembling, but I feel I must say it. Much of the American church has lost the fear of the Lord. Notice that those who wouldn't dare join them had high esteem for them. It seems that our society has lost its esteem for the church. Over the last few years our church has been broken into many times, we have lost thousands of dollars from people stealing copper from our air conditioning units, and have often been vandalized. When I tell someone about it, they are stunned and often respond,"They'd do that to a church?". This is what I feel God is showing me about our society. Much of society does not esteem the church because the church has lost the fear of the Lord. What the church fails to teach and model before the world will not only be absent in the church, but its absence will be multiplied exponentially in society.
In Proverbs it says the fear of the Lord tendeth to life. Psalms 34 says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. In both the Psalms and Proverbs it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There are many promises for those who walk in the fear of the Lord. the fear of the Lord is a reverential awe. The awesomeness of God brings terror to our flesh. I have come to see the fear of the Lord as not allowing anything that would in any way hinder my relationship with Him. The fear of the Lord is pure; it is clean and it positions me for His power to flow through me.
I believe that as we see God move again in the church, the days of Ananias and Sapphira will return. There will be intimacy, purity, unity, and power. We choose the fear of the Lord.
Be blessed,
Herb Dean
I pray that you are well. I have been preaching through the book of Acts and it has been very eye-opening. I have been in chapter 5 for three weeks now and in dealing with the passage on Ananias and Sapphira it became increasingly apparent that in the 21st century church we have lost the fear of the Lord. I want to talk a little about that today. As always I pray this will be a blessing to you.
Then immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her out, buried her by her husband. So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. Acts 5:10,11
Can you imagine, one of those young men goes home and tells his family, "We had an exciting time at church today, two people dropped dead!" I am not sure what that might do to the next weeks attendance.
Was that fear a good thing or a bad thing? Look at the following scriptures with the understanding that there were no chapter or verse breaks in the original. What do we see in verses 12 through 16?
1. Many signs and wonders were done among the people by the apostles.
2. They were all in one accord.
3. Even those who did not join the church had great esteem for them.
4. Multitudes were saved.
5. All the sick and demonically tormented that were brought to them were healed.
I'd like to add a few thoughts on what we see there. Years ago I heard a couple of preachers speak of a coming revival which would come in four stages. The four stages were:
1) Intimacy
2) Purity
3) Unity
4) Power
I believe these stages were evident here and that the fear of the Lord is the catalyst in each of these stages.They were in one accord. In the verse used for the title, the fear of the Lord is clean, the word clean in Hebrew means pure, clean, purified, unalloyed. We cannot have unity without purity of heart, purity of motives. Do we dare assemble in the presence of a holy God with impure motives in our heart. Tradition says a rope was tied around the ankle of the priest so He could be dragged out if he died in the Holy of Holies.
Intimacy and purity are closely related. How can I get close to God if I refuse to walk in purity.
The psalmist asks in Psalms 15, "Lord who may abide in Your holy tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?" Again, he says in Psalms 24,"Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart...."
It seems that David's greatest fear in his psalm of contrition, Psalms 51, was losing the Lord's presence."Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Psalms 51:11. It seems to me that one of the facets of the fear of the Lord is fear of losing intimacy with Him. I am thankful, that I can come boldly before His throne and receive mercy and find grace in my time of need and if I confess my sin He is faithful and just to forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. We have a loving and forgiving Father who is approachable, full of mercy and grace, but He is holy. Where sin abounds grace does much more abound, so what shall we say then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How can we who are dead to sin live any longer therein? Can we continue in sin and it not affect our relationship with the Father? I think not. We reject grace if we continue to sin. Consider this for example, unforgiveness is rejecting God's grace. Jesus clearly states if we do not forgive, we'll not be forgiven. To harbor unforgiveness is to reject grace and the fear of the Lord.
Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit...? ......you have not lied to men but to God. Acts 5:3a;4b
It seems that Ananias had allowed the enemy place in his heart. The deception he devised could be categorized as the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life. He wanted the money and the praise of men as well. In his impure motives he lied to the Holy Spirit. We can quench the Spirit and we can grieve the Spirit. It grieves the Spirit to give anything else His place and to quench the Spirit is like crimping a water hose. the Spirit gives life, but any place we give to the enemy in our heart, he will work death in. I hate to say this but there are those who have quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit for so long that they are like Sampson when his hair was cut; he did not know the Lord had departed from him. There are many who are not walking in the fullness that God has for them. There are many in the church in whom the enemy is working death.
Friends, I say this in fear and trembling, but I feel I must say it. Much of the American church has lost the fear of the Lord. Notice that those who wouldn't dare join them had high esteem for them. It seems that our society has lost its esteem for the church. Over the last few years our church has been broken into many times, we have lost thousands of dollars from people stealing copper from our air conditioning units, and have often been vandalized. When I tell someone about it, they are stunned and often respond,"They'd do that to a church?". This is what I feel God is showing me about our society. Much of society does not esteem the church because the church has lost the fear of the Lord. What the church fails to teach and model before the world will not only be absent in the church, but its absence will be multiplied exponentially in society.
In Proverbs it says the fear of the Lord tendeth to life. Psalms 34 says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. In both the Psalms and Proverbs it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There are many promises for those who walk in the fear of the Lord. the fear of the Lord is a reverential awe. The awesomeness of God brings terror to our flesh. I have come to see the fear of the Lord as not allowing anything that would in any way hinder my relationship with Him. The fear of the Lord is pure; it is clean and it positions me for His power to flow through me.
I believe that as we see God move again in the church, the days of Ananias and Sapphira will return. There will be intimacy, purity, unity, and power. We choose the fear of the Lord.
Be blessed,
Herb Dean
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Dear friends,
I pray you are well. I, as many of you, have a cry in my heart for revival in our nation. So what is revival? I really feel that revival comes as a result as a greater revelation of God's glory. The revelation of His glory reveals our lack thereof. I believe that is why the revivals of the past were marked with repentance and confession. I am convinced that what the church needs today is not more preaching and teaching and I am by no means lessening their importance. Too often there is a lack of understanding of the word and a lack of spiritual depth. Those are essentials, but what we really need in our churches today is a God encounter. Let's look at a few "close encounters of the divine kind."
Jacob- Jacob had a couple of God encounters. The first was through a dream after he had left home and was heading to Haran. The dream was of angels ascending and descending upon a ladder into heaven. It is interesting that Jesus said to Nathan that he would see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. I can't help but believe that ladder represented Jesus who is our access to heaven and the Father. Jacob set up a pillar there, poured oil upon it, called the place Bethel (House of God) and made a vow unto the Lord. That was in Genesis 28. In Genesis 32 he wrestled with the Angel of the Lord believed to be the pre-incarnate Christ and he was changed. He received a name change from heel-grabber to Prince with God. A God encounter can change your name.
Job- Job was described as a blameless and upright man, and one who feared God and shunned evil. In His distress he refused to speak evil against God, but he held fast to his own righteousness. It seemed he had things figured out despite his friends' objections, when God showed up. After the Lord had challenged Job, this man among men could only admit that he spoke of things he knew not and finished his response with these words, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see You. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." A God encounter will quickly expose any pride or self-righteousness.
Isaiah- Isaiah was an established prophet when in a sad and desperate time, he received a vision of the Lord. In Isaiah 6 we read of what he saw and heard. What was Isaiah's response to seeing God? "Woe is me, for I am undone! (ruined) Because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. A God encounter revealed his iniquity. He was cleansed, commissioned, and sent.
Peter- Jesus got in his boat. They had already stopped fishing and were cleaning their nets.They had caught nothing. Jesus sat in the boat and taught the multitudes and after a while Jesus told them to launch out into the deep and let down their nets for a catch." Reluctantly they obeyed Him and when the haul was so great the boats were in danger of sinking, he didn't say, "Wow! Jesus how about joining up with us and be our fish finder." I think he realized at that point that Jesus was more than a teacher and he was broken before Him.
Luke 5:8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" Instead of Jesus departing, Peter would change his pursuit and become a fisher of men.
In looking at moves of God in the past, they may have manifested themselves in slightly different ways among different groups of people but the common factor in all of them was the manifest presence of God. The essence of His glory is His goodness. Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Romans 2:4
It is not only the extension of His goodness to us, but also the revelation of His goodness that reveals man's lack thereof. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 Lord, we ask for a greater revelation of your glory in Your church and this earth. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
I pray you are well. I, as many of you, have a cry in my heart for revival in our nation. So what is revival? I really feel that revival comes as a result as a greater revelation of God's glory. The revelation of His glory reveals our lack thereof. I believe that is why the revivals of the past were marked with repentance and confession. I am convinced that what the church needs today is not more preaching and teaching and I am by no means lessening their importance. Too often there is a lack of understanding of the word and a lack of spiritual depth. Those are essentials, but what we really need in our churches today is a God encounter. Let's look at a few "close encounters of the divine kind."
Jacob- Jacob had a couple of God encounters. The first was through a dream after he had left home and was heading to Haran. The dream was of angels ascending and descending upon a ladder into heaven. It is interesting that Jesus said to Nathan that he would see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. I can't help but believe that ladder represented Jesus who is our access to heaven and the Father. Jacob set up a pillar there, poured oil upon it, called the place Bethel (House of God) and made a vow unto the Lord. That was in Genesis 28. In Genesis 32 he wrestled with the Angel of the Lord believed to be the pre-incarnate Christ and he was changed. He received a name change from heel-grabber to Prince with God. A God encounter can change your name.
Job- Job was described as a blameless and upright man, and one who feared God and shunned evil. In His distress he refused to speak evil against God, but he held fast to his own righteousness. It seemed he had things figured out despite his friends' objections, when God showed up. After the Lord had challenged Job, this man among men could only admit that he spoke of things he knew not and finished his response with these words, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see You. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." A God encounter will quickly expose any pride or self-righteousness.
Isaiah- Isaiah was an established prophet when in a sad and desperate time, he received a vision of the Lord. In Isaiah 6 we read of what he saw and heard. What was Isaiah's response to seeing God? "Woe is me, for I am undone! (ruined) Because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. A God encounter revealed his iniquity. He was cleansed, commissioned, and sent.
Peter- Jesus got in his boat. They had already stopped fishing and were cleaning their nets.They had caught nothing. Jesus sat in the boat and taught the multitudes and after a while Jesus told them to launch out into the deep and let down their nets for a catch." Reluctantly they obeyed Him and when the haul was so great the boats were in danger of sinking, he didn't say, "Wow! Jesus how about joining up with us and be our fish finder." I think he realized at that point that Jesus was more than a teacher and he was broken before Him.
Luke 5:8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" Instead of Jesus departing, Peter would change his pursuit and become a fisher of men.
In looking at moves of God in the past, they may have manifested themselves in slightly different ways among different groups of people but the common factor in all of them was the manifest presence of God. The essence of His glory is His goodness. Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Romans 2:4
It is not only the extension of His goodness to us, but also the revelation of His goodness that reveals man's lack thereof. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 Lord, we ask for a greater revelation of your glory in Your church and this earth. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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